Peacetime Acquisitions
There was
a substantial amount of peace during Solomon’s reign. As such, Solomon was able to use the time to
secure the boarders of his kingdom and to do what he could to help trade and
commerce among his people. Solomon
rebuilds several wilderness towns and oasis points to enable people to increase
within the confines of safety and security.
Because
of the increase in prosperity and making the borders of the land more secure,
Solomon also has greater influence over the non-Hebrew inhabitants of the
land. The foreigners are made into
forced laborers for the sake of Solomon’s building campaign. This spares the Hebrew people from having to
be laborers and instead allows them the serve in the military and as foremen
over the laborers. There can be no doubt
that having your own tribesmen serve in your military is better than having
foreigners who have no particular allegiance.
However,
I cannot help but wonder what God’s opinion of this reality is. God did originally tell the Hebrew people to
kick out all of the foreigners. However,
God also established hospitality codes for god-fearing foreigners among
them. We know from other places of
scripture that God was not pleased that they allowed Canaanites to live among
them. I cannot imagine that God was
equally pleased by then turning around and treating those same people in a less
than hospitable means.
Solomon’s Wife
Not only
do we hear about foreigners living in the land, we also hear about Solomon’s
attempt to build a home for his wife – the daughter of Pharaoh. Certainly this marriage was a political
marriage to help guarantee peace between Egypt and the Hebrew nation. But we see once more that Solomon is inviting
foreigners to come into the land without being in relationship with God.
Furthermore,
while Solomon does move her out of David’s palace, he also moves her to a new
palace on the temple mount. {See 1 Kings 7:8, 9:24} Thus, while Solomon seems to be acting in
order to please the Lord we can really see that Solomon has invited foreigners
into the palace in Jerusalem in close proximity to the temple. Here we see the beginning of the downfall of
Solomon. Foreign influences are
beginning to be welcomed into his midst – into the midst of God’s influence.
You may
be wondering why it is that I’m coming down hard on this particular point,
especially when the text seems to present it as a positive thing. God warned the Hebrew people about
intermarriage, especially for the sake of political reasons. God warned them that the practice of marrying
people who did not follow God would lead them astray into idolatry. {See
Exodus 34:16, Deuteronomy 7:3, and for references around the time of the
chronicler see Nehemiah 10:30 and almost all of Ezra 10.} Furthermore, there was a special warning against
dealing with Egypt for fear of the Hebrew people returning to the ways of
Egypt. {See Deuteronomy 17:16-17.} As
Solomon prospers, we can begin to see him leaning upon his own strength,
prosperity, and growing political power rather than relying upon God. It is a trend that will eventually sink his
reign and the Hebrew people. {See 1 Kings 11:1-13 for an account regarding
this point which the chronicler does not mention in his version of Solomon’s
story.}
Solomon’s Success
All of
that being said, we can give some credit to Solomon. He did start and complete the temple. He did assign the priests according to David’s
plan. He did follow through with what
needed to be done. He did continue with the
sacrifices and festivals as the Lord desired.
While he certainly had his flaws, as do we all, he did also spend time
adhering to what the Lord required.
Solomon
also had much economic success. In fact,
this may be that for which Solomon is most known. As we can see here in this passage, much of
Solomon’s economic success was maritime success with the help of Hiram of the
Phoenicians. Solomon builds up Ezion-geber,
which is a town on the Red Sea. With the
help of Hiram, Solomon built a fleet of ships so that he could trade with the
eastern parts of Africa and the southern portions of Asia. This route of trade was previously
unavailable for Mediterranean nations, thus Solomon was able to bring goods to
people who had no prior exposure to what they could offer. Solomon astutely takes advantage of the
opportunity to partner with Hiram.
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